Aja Naomi King Breaks Down How 'Grosse Pointe Garden Society' Is Similar — And Different — to 'How to Get Away With Murder'

Aja Naomi King Breaks Down How 'Grosse Pointe Garden Society' Is Similar — And
Different — to 'How to Get Away With Murder'

Transcript

00:00This show obviously, as a fan of How to Get Away with Murder, it feels like a nod to fans of your

00:04work, but how would you say this is like the perfect watch for those viewers, but it's still,

00:09this show's very different. So how is it different, but also like a nice little something?

00:14Thank you for asking, Matt, because that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this show in

00:18the first place. There was an aspect of it that just felt like nostalgia. It was giving off that,

00:24like, How to Get Away with Murder and Desperate Housewives vibes, and it's like, it's just like,

00:28it's like a warm hug watching this show because of how familiar it is, but the premise is so

00:34different from either of these things. So we start with these four friends in a garden club,

00:44and, well, they get entangled in a murder. That's not exactly how you want things to go when you're

00:51working at a garden club, but it's set in the city of Grosse Pointe, which is a neighborhood in

00:57Detroit, in Michigan, and, yeah, it's like, it's this very kind of, like, upper class, I want to

01:06say hoity-toity sort of area, and my character, Catherine, is someone who's kind of like old

01:14money, established, been there forever. She's someone who's the essence of Grosse Pointe,

01:19like just trying to maintain everything that her parents have established for her to have there,

01:26and you get to see that kind of mix between the haves and the have-nots, so to speak, because

01:32they live side by side, and we form this friendship in this garden club, and, you know, it's a

01:38competitive club, of course, and I like to say that Catherine's more like, I mean, she is vice

01:44president of the club, but when you're watching the show, you might notice she's doing more managing

01:49than gardening. She's making sure everyone else is doing it correctly, and she has a very powerful

01:54presence, which is what I love about her, and it's very different from what I've done with other

01:59characters in that sense. Just energetically, it's coming from a different place, because she is so

02:05established in the community. It's less about trying to prove something to someone, and more

02:10about maintaining what has already been proven, and, yeah, but the feel of the show, the excitement,

02:17the flash-forwards, like, there are aspects of it that are, like, really thrilling and sexy,

02:22and have this kind of, like, absurdist comedic moments, which I really love, but then it'll also

02:28have these moments of, like, really grounded relational drama between characters that I,

02:34that for me, as an actor, are a dream to dive into, and also, I'm like, there's nothing like

02:40this show on TV right now, which I think is what makes it really exciting, and, yeah, and I'm just

02:45excited for people to see everything we're filming.